Well, everyone is different. For me, I can resist around smokers because I tell them I've quit. Thus, I must look strong in front of them and guard my quit.

At home, my defenses are down, I'm just "me," and I'm probably thinking about what I used to do when I came home from an evening out with my smoking friends. I just lit up. I could cheat at home and no one would know -- except me! Can't do that with your smoking friends who are watching you closely to see how you are going to respond. I think smokers tend to lie in wait for their friends who quit -- to see if they're going to fail.

Who knows?

(So. Nicodemon is feminine, huh? Not for me :)

I think it does have something to do with being home and being yourself, and from years of habitually lighting up.
I don't know really. Craves come at the oddest times sometime. And, I wonder what set them off...now I don't wonder. I just hang in, breathe through it and get on with my day.
Glad you aren't smoking...smokers stink.
Barb

Tselani's response was good insight :)
I also think that it might be the "let down time" when you're wrapping up your day. You know...pondering what went on that day...conversations you had...issues you worked through. The habit of standing outside to do that might call to you?

Is there another fulfilling way to go through that same act without the beast in hand?

I really think that the answer to this one is quite simple! When you are not smoking and really focused on your quit and watch someone having a cigarette, it just looks so terrible! You don't wanna smoke and look like a dirty and stupid individual, you kind of rise above it, when you see it, smell it and view it for what it is! When you are alone, you tend to blinker yourself to this filth as you are no longer a spectator. So I guess when you are alone it almost becomes exceptable, especially as you are only going to have just the one! NOT!!!!

I appreciate everyone's feedback on this. I connect especially well with the idea of (not that it's been said just like this, but this has been said in the aggregate)...anyway, the idea of performance vs. liberty.

Performance: It seems that the opportunity to perform for another--by wanting to make sure buddy-boy or someone else knows that I am NOT smoking--generally (though not always) helps me to say "No way, Jose".

Liberty: Though I am free when I am with buddy-boy, I am even more free when I am alone. Free to act and not be questioned; free to act and not have the "known" me change at all (I mean, not to anyone's knowledge). And the feeling of getting away with something is a pretty big temptation to me.

But I do not think that performance is better than liberty. I am only analyzing how I seem to think at many point in regards to smoking, and in light of your good feedback. So, thanks!

the nicodemon is sneaky and evil, addicts like to hide, thus much easier to hide and fix than at a friends.....don't give in it's all tricky....

Okay, so I agree with most here, though I wouldn't choose the same words. I feel like a lot of these words have truth in them, but at the core lies the word focus. Your environment has an obvious impact on how and where you focus your thoughts. Because the hardest part of this addiction is the physycological aspect I think that it is much easier to resist temptation if we have something stimulating to focvus on, a conversation with a friend. I think being as far into your quit as you are, Adam, that you have a super strong foundation to resist, especially if your engaged. It didn't surprise me that while you were there it wasn't difficult to take the focus off smoking in your mind. Now when you go home, and it's quiet, and you have your own mind to listen to, it's much harder not to focus on smoking b/c you just left an environment where people gave themselves permission to do that and so that 'liberty' you speak of is brought back to think of later in your aloneness. People can be the ultimate triggers sometimes, but not immediatley. I honestly think the key here is preparing for environments like this by talking about how you feel going into it, during it and after it with Sheri or friends at the gathering. Do what you love to do. Talk. Keep talking about it, don't even picture a dead horse, you coul;dn't possibley talk abouty this addiction enough right now. Even if you think people don't care, even if you think people don't want to hear it, just ignore that voice and Talk about it anyway. The more you get it out, the less it will haunt you in your aloneness. That's just my opinoin, though, it makes sense to me that the more you express what your fears/ desires are in this addiction i.e., admitting when you want a cigarette outloud, describing the type of crave, talking about why you quit, mourning the fact you had to quit, then verbally transforming a craving into positive affirmation of committment to your quit. Retraining that focus means you come closer you to understanding yourself and the deepest longing inside you, which is to be healthy and live a long wonderful life. Knowledge is power, the power to win this One. You are doing so well with your quit. I hope this helped!

I agree with everything everyone else wrote but want to add: don't overlook the basics here. At your friend's house, you were exposed to smoke and smoking. You were reunited with the smell, the gestures, and all of the chemicals. That made the parts of you that are addicted to nicotine and to smoking very happy. By the time you got home, those parts wanted more, more, more. They demanded it, and you had a struggle on your hands. Bottom line: your addiction got triggered big time by second hand smoke. The struggle was worse back at your house precisely because it is a smoke-free environment, and part of you was begging for smoke.

Funny, you know i expirience exactly the same thing when i was smoke free, i did not bother me at all, that i was with big smokers, just intil i came home, i stink of smoke change cloth, and then it came verry slowly, mostly the day after that i suddenly feelt to smoke.

be strong..
love bettina